Think Secret Shutting Down 240
A number of readers are sending in the news that the Mac rumors site Think Secret will be shutting down, as part of the (secret) settlement of a lawsuit Apple filed in 2005. Apple had claimed that the blog, published since 1998 by college student Nick Ciarelli, had revealed Apple's trade secrets. The only other detail of the settlement that has been revealed is that Think Secret was not forced to reveal any sources.
Re:At least Apple didn't really win (Score:3, Interesting)
My first anti-apple rant (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, to the rant. Perhaps I'm just paying more attention, but it feels to me that Apple is becoming more and more of an Evil Empire(tm). Suing a site that is completely devoted to Apple Fanboys out of existence seems pretty anti-customer. The "You installed bootcamp beta and now you must upgrade to Leopard if you ever want to boot your computer again" fiasco a few weeks ago reeked of the same.
My most recent bout of self-righteous indignation came when I went to Apple's online store to buy a new nano as a gift. I wanted to buy one of the 4gb nanos, and I wanted it in green. Sadly, this is impossible. The 4gb nano only comes in silver. To get a colored nano, you have to pay the extra $50 bucks for the 8gb model. It's a little thing, but it pushed me over the edge. Part of Apple's appeal has always been, "You pay a bit more to get something a bit cooler", but this is a bit too blatant for me. It's enough to kick me out of the fanboy camp. I'm sure Apple-product-lust will still rise in my greedy heart from time-to-time, but I'll do my self-righteous best to suppress those longings in favor of less restrictive fare.
In a related story, are there competitors to the nano that are as elegantly designed and easy to use?
Re:He would have closed down either way. (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't think of a publisher that wouldn't want a staffer that has exclusive stories dropping in his lap.
That's fairly normal "agreement" wording (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in 2000, I got a letter from a Sun attorney threatening me with a lawsuit [sunhelp.org] over some material on the "Rumors" section of my web site [sunhelp.org]. They didn't like the fact that I'd copied documents (blueprints/engineering drawings) from their web server to mine and those documents were marked "Proprietary and Confidential". They also disliked the fact that I used the color purple on my web site and had a logo that was vaguely reminiscent of theirs.
I countered with the fact that I got the documents from a search on their publicly-accessible web server, and that after AOL, the next six top visitors of the site were Sun employees themselves hitting it from internal Sun proxy servers, and that no one had ever expressed concern over the logo or the purple color since the site was created in '97.
After a couple of weeks of negotiations, we came to an agreement and I made this public statement:
"I'm happy to announce that I have amicably resolved my situation with Sun regarding SunHELP.org. The site will function much like it has in the past, but in a manner that protects Sun's trademarks. In fact, although I will continue to operate independently of Sun, Sun has offered to help me provide you with better information about Sun and its products. I am pleased with the outcome and the manner in which this situation was resolved. I now consider this matter closed."
A couple of weeks later, I got a FedEx delivery of a brand-new Ultra 10 workstation as a "thank you" for "resolving the dispute in a friendly and speedy manner that avoided litigation". Since then, I've had good relations with the company. I was a member of the Opensolaris Pilot Program and have talked in email with both Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz. Sun has greatly improved their relationship with third-party supporters since 2000; in fact, in 2006 they donated a fully-loaded T1000 system to SunHELP.
Nick at ThinkSecret probably ended up with some free Apple gear in exchange for shutting his site down - after all for Apple, "no publicity is bad publicity".
Backroom Deal = Backwards Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
I probably have a different take on this development, having done a lot of research at one time into trade secret laws and whistleblower statutes in the U.S., as well as this case in particular. What I find really interesting about this agreement we know so little about, is the only two things we do know are exactly backwards from justice. It seems to me that both Apple and ThinkSecret lost here, since neither was given what they wanted. Let me explain.
First, ThinkSecret had no right to protect the confidentiality of their sources. Apple sued ThinkSecret asking for the identities of those people who had committed a criminal act against them. (Note, whether revealing trade secrets should be a crime, is another discussion). According to the filing, that is all they wanted and it is the one thing they did not get. Despite having no legal right to keep these sources secret, ThinkSecret managed to make a deal to do that, probably out of personal loyalty or a perceived ethical obligation on the part of Nick Ciarelli. He seems to have walked away from this with his reputation as a journalist intact, which is a valuable asset if he's planning on asking sources to trust him in the future. It also speaks quite well of his character.
Second, Apple had no right to shut down this publication, and it was probably in their best interests to avoid doing so. And yet, in a deal to protect those sources, that is exactly what happened. Why and how did such a thing happen? We can only speculate. My best guess is that after dealing with the public relations aspect of this for a while and with mounting court costs that were unlikely to ever be repaid, someone at Apple made the decision that this should "go away" and ham-fistedly ordered the legal team to settle it one way or another and make sure it didn't happen again. As a result, Apple failed to get what they were out for, and stupidly got an agreement to shut the site down instead.
I think my perspective on this is probably a little less reactionary and a little more realistic than what I've seen in other posts here. ThinkSecret was aiding others to break the law and clearly in the wrong on this lawsuit, but having done something wrong, Nick Ciarelli took all the responsibility for other's criminal acts (which he helped incite) upon himself and shielded them. Apple, fumbled the ball, failed to get the leaks identified, and made a typically corporate and shortsighted decision. Everyone lost.
Re:Monkey off his back? (Score:3, Interesting)
The company seems to have no common sense when it comes to a sense of proportionality. Microsoft my be an incompetent bully when it comes to its competition, but Apple is downright schizophrenic when it comes to dealing with its friends.
This will go down as a milestone in the company's history and whether they continue to be successful it will remain an unsightly incident.
Re:Hope He Got Some Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct, this is not a win for Apple. It IS a win for all the other Apple rumor sites though.
"Seweeeet, one of our competitors--a particularly GOOD one, good enough to get Apple mad enough to shut them down--bites the dust! More Web ad revenue for me! Merry Christmas boys, iPod nanos all around! See you at MacWorld, Nick! Ha ha ha!"